It was a triumphant moment for music when Searching for Sugar Man won the Academy Award for best documentary last month. Yes, it was nice that after decades of anonymity, the subject of the movie, singer/songwriter Rodriguez got his day in the sun. But the award also validated what has, over the last decade, become the most consistently great genre in the world of film, the documentary about obscure musicians.
The story of the Beatles as told in The Beatles Anthology is crafted so well that you realize if the Beatles didn't exist, someone would have had to make them up. But everyone knows the Beatles did in fact exist. The genius of the documentary about the obscure musician is we are not entirely sure if it's made up or not.
If the goal of every movie is to give audiences a suspension of disbelief, the following five (supposedly true) movies are smash successes.
5. Anvil: The Story of Anvil (2008)
Spinal Tap. Anvil is a heavy metal band that trogged through hardship
for three decades. In spite of their awful music you can't help but root
for these underdogs to find success.
4. Searching For Sugar Man
(2012)
Man, it seems impossible that a psychedelic troubadour who could give
Donovan and T Rex a run for their money would go unknown outside South
Africa for forty years.
Hollywood big budget movies never quite get right. Just delete from
your memory how Rodriguez's sound morphed into the realm of Jimmy
Buffet.
